Chapter 193
Do-Jin’s magic seeped along a wound that had been punched through Galante in some distant, forgotten past. One shot hit, followed by another, then a third. He didn’t have the time or the headspace to think about what spell to use. His body remembered before his brain could catch up, and magic poured out on instinct alone.
Each hit drove into the core, making Galante’s massive body jolt in uneven spasms. The heart was already ruined and long past saving, so that didn’t matter. The problem was the power source that had hauled this dead dragon back into motion. The new weak point sat exactly where the heart should’ve been.
“GRAAAAH!” Galante roared and tried to thrash its body.
“Block it!”
“Buy him time! Just buy him time, no matter how fucked up we get!”
The raid members threw themselves forward without hesitation. Some cast binding spells. Others clung to the dragon’s body with their bare hands. A few stepped straight into incoming attacks, knowing full well they were throwing their lives away, all just to give Do-Jin enough time to cast one more spell.
Any one of those moments meant nothing on its own. But they piled up one after another, adding up to measurable time. When there were fewer than ten raid members still standing, Galante’s head finally dropped.
“Ah...” One of them let out a small, almost inaudible sound.
“WAAAAAAAAH!”
What followed wasn’t a cheer so much as a raw scream ripped straight out of their lungs. The survivors screamed as they watched the enormous dragon’s body finally collapse toward the ground. The roar that’d once belonged to the dragon was stolen by human voices.
Did we actually fucking do it? Do-Jin stood frozen in the thickest concentration of poison, spamming magic until his body nearly gave out.
He was one step from death. His corneas were badly damaged, and his vision had blurred into a smeared mess. The Magic Eye was the only reason he could see at all. Without it, his eyes would’ve melted into jelly by now.
The cheers from the handful of survivors barely made it through the haze, as if it were coming through water. Even so, what little he could see and hear told him enough. His insane gamble hadn’t blown up in his face.
We did it.
Although Do-Jin hadn’t been confident about taking down Galante in any of those runs, he never gave up hope. Thanks to that suicidal play at the end, they managed to avoid the disaster this boss would’ve caused otherwise. The nightmare was over, and the relief hit so hard his chest ached.
“We fucking did it.”
Little by little, the sound returned, followed by his vision. The poison was quickly fading after Galante’s death. Healing energy flooded his body and made quick work of it, yet something felt wrong. His strength should’ve returned by now, but instead, he felt hollowed out. All he wanted was to collapse face-first and sleep until the universe stopped moving.
Ah. I wanna sleep so damn bad. Screw the cleanup... I’m logging out and going to bed.
As that thought crossed his mind and he forced a faint smile, the clear message appeared.
[World Boss ‘Venomhorn Dragon Galante’ has been defeated.]
[Advent▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒]
[▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒]
However, the messages after that seemed to be glitching out. The surrounding space also twisted violently, as if convulsing. The world warped and split apart like cracked glass ready to give way. Without warning, a violent burst of golden light flooded everything.
“What the fuck is this now?”
At the same time, the poison debuff slammed back into place like a middle finger from the system. Toxic energy started pouring out of Galante’s corpse again.
[The predetermined fate must ▒▒ ▒▒▒ ▒▒▒.]
[Venomhorn Dragon Galante is attempting to collapse its own body and spread its poison. If the poison is released, the damage will spiral out of control. Stop it by any means necessary.]
Messages kept popping up one after another, like the system was deliberately kicking him while he was down.
“That’s fucking bullshit.” His voice, which had been overflowing with joy just seconds ago, cracked and curdled into raw despair.
Is this really a future that’s this goddamn hard to change?
Do-Jin tried to force another spell out. However, the poison didn’t even give him the chance. The toxic miasma surged over him and locked his body down completely. His limbs froze and his mouth refused to open. He couldn’t cast a spell, nor could he even spit out a single curse.
The space around him began to collapse. With the instance dungeon crumbling away, Galante was exposed to the outside world. Like a puppet tangled in strings called fate, the dragon that had already fallen slowly began to lift its body again.
I’ll fucking change the fate someday. No matter what...
Even if he couldn’t stop what was about to happen right now, Do-Jin ground his teeth together and kept staring straight ahead, even as the vision that had barely cleared started melting again.
The wall of the instance that had kept Lostania and Galante separated finally gave way. Galante’s body was nothing more than a weapon of mass slaughter rolling straight into the overworld. At that point, it felt like the chance to stop the disaster had already slipped through their fingers.
“Fire!” A firm shout cut through everything, coming from beyond the collapsing instance space.
Beyond the rain of tens of thousands of shattered glass shards, an insane number of projectiles came whistling in, launched by the massive crowd outside the instance wall. Some had watched Do-Jin grind through the entire event. Others had only shown up for his last stand, ready to cheer him on or console him if he failed. When the instance ended and Do-Jin’s raid party still hadn’t come out, they finally understood why through the broadcast.
“Attack! The first kill’s coming out of our fucking channel!”
They had been waiting for this exact moment, and they let everything fly.
“Screw it! Dying once won’t kill me.”
Melee fighters charged straight into the poison like maniacs, not caring about the damage in the slightest. Dozens of healing spells slammed down onto Do-Jin at the same time, piling up in an overwhelming wave.
The people who rushed in came from all over, at all kinds of levels, some so low they couldn’t have dreamed of joining the event itself. But it didn’t matter. With enough numbers, they could brute-force almost anything.
“Do-Jin, we’ve got you. We’re dragging you out right now.”
People dove into the poison fog while their skin rotted and burned, grabbed hold of him, and dragged him back out by force. Throughout the rescue process, the attacks never stopped.
“The chest. Hit that bastard’s chest...” Do-Jin muttered.
“We saw every bit of it. We know where to aim.”
The moment Do-Jin got hauled clear, the barrage shifted all at once. Every spell, every arrow, every piece of flying steel slammed straight into Galante’s chest. Explosions overlapped in a deafening mess. Sound crashed over sound until it stopped meaning anything.
“It’s going down.”
The massive dragon slammed into the ground, and the impact rang out like the future itself cracking and shifting.
[Venomhorn Dragon Galante has been completely silenced.]
[Instance Dungeon Pit Where the Evil Dragon Lies Buried has been cleared.]
[The fully revived World Boss Venomhorn Dragon Galante has been defeated.]
A cheer erupted across the battlefield, nothing like those heard inside the instance. It was raw, unfiltered, and completely overwhelming. Within that cacophony of voices were Theresa, Tanto, and every raid member who had already died and been kicked out of the instance. They were all mixed together now, screaming until their throats burned, losing their minds like nothing else in existence mattered anymore.
At the center of that deafening uproar, right in front of Galante’s collapsed head, Do-Jin stood there staring blankly ahead, like his soul hadn’t caught up yet. Hologram windows and system messages flooded his vision, blotting out everything else. Reward calculations scrolled past. EXP gains stacked. Random system messages and notifications kept piling up without mercy.
Out of all the noise and flashes, only a single line actually reached him.
[The flow of fate has changed.]
***
[Title: List of Dumbasses Who Took a Massive L in Life Today]
[Everyone who didn’t watch Do-Jin’s stream live. If you disagree, you’re still wrong.]
└ Yeah, this is straight facts.
└ Anyone who missed that shit is gonna regret it even on their deathbed.
└ I nearly pissed myself when Do-Jin solo rushed in, and I kept losing my shit all the way to the end.
└ Same. I freaked out so hard, I dried myself out and ended up at the hospital getting an IV. Totally worth it.
[Title: Hey, assholes.]
[I was stuck training and couldn’t watch Do-Jin’s stream live. What the fuck has this country ever done for me? Dragging me into the military wasn’t enough, now it had to make me miss this, too.]
└ Dumbass LOL. What were you doing, not shooting? If it was me, I’d have punched a hole through my commander and deserted just to watch his stream.
└ Thank you for your service.
└ Fuck... I missed it live too. This is unbelievably bullshit.
[Title: This is the Do-Jin timeline now.]
[Honestly, that scene today was pure romance, a moment this game is gonna remember forever. It had a boss that looked straight up impossible to kill, a mage who refused to quit until the very end, and a bunch of people who stepped up to back him when it mattered.]
└ No shit. The real-time trending videos from ranks one through eight are all clips from that scene LOL.
└ I didn’t even care about Do-Jin before, but that video converted me.
└ Do-Jin was criminally cute today. That look in his eyes when he stared at Galante’s corpse at the end... fuck, no, I’m done. I’m opening the clip again. This is unhealthy.
After the World Boss Raid event ended, every community was flooded with posts about Do-Jin, Galante, and that final moment. The rewards included access to a lower-difficulty version of the dungeon, and plenty of groups were still running it, but almost nobody cared. No one was talking about mechanics or clears, because Do-Jin’s final confrontation had swallowed the whole internet. The standoff with Galante and everything that followed was too dramatic, too insane, too cinematic for anything else to compete.
[Title: Bragging About a Life Achievement]
[One of the five people who dragged Do-Jin out at the end was me. Screenshot attached.]
└ Wait, hold the fuck on.
└ No way. No fucking way.
└ Are you serious right now? I hate you so much it’s unreal.
└ You bastard! I hope both sides of your pillow are warm forever.
└ I heard everyone who was there leveled up. Don’t bullshit me. Is that real?
└ Yeah, it’s real. Everyone who landed a hit on Galante at the end leveled up from the experience reward. No extra loot though.
└ I don’t care about loot. I’d sell my soul for that achievement.
└ I’m uninstalling. This game peaked today, and it wasn’t with me.
People who had been watching other streams instead of Do-Jin’s were steeped in regret.
“T-Team Lead! The subscriber count is skyrocketing like crazy!”
“Stop stating the obvious and get back to work! Pump out shorts, now!”
The content team worked with the quiet understanding that going home on time was a lost cause. Even so, everyone was grinning ear to ear. Their bodies were exhausted, but the work felt worth it. The results were obvious, and in cases like this, a fat bonus was basically guaranteed.
“Is this guy playing a game, or shooting a damn movie?”
Marketing was in the same situation. Buried under an avalanche of ad inquiries and collaboration requests, Kim Young-Hee was drowning in work. In the middle of nonstop email alerts and message notifications, she caught a reply from Chun Ji-Hyun.
Chun Ji-Hyun: Do-Jin is currently asleep, Kim Young-Hee.
Kim Young-Hee let out a quiet laugh without even realizing it. “So he caused all this chaos and then just went to sleep.”
While the entire world argued, celebrated, coped, and collectively lost their minds over him, Do-Jin hadn’t even waited for the reward calculation to finish before passing out with an unprecedentedly peaceful expression.
He had finally changed a future that had stubbornly refused to budge. Wrapped in the comfort of that fact, Do-Jin was enjoying the deepest sleep he’d had in a long time. The world could scream and lose its mind all it wanted. All Do-Jin cared about was that one disaster being gone for good now.